Bernard Kalb, former foreign correspondent for CBS, NBC, and the NYT.
He reported for The Times from 1946 to 1962, for CBS during the next 18 years (during which he joined his brother, Marvin, on the diplomatic beat) and as NBC’s State Department correspondent from 1980 to 1985. Then, for nearly two years, he served in the Reagan administration’s State Department — a stint that ended contentiously.
As a CBS correspondent in 1972, Mr. Kalb accompanied President Richard M. Nixon on the trip to China that proved to be a major step in the normalization of relations between the two nations. He also made virtually every overseas trip with Henry A. Kissinger, Cyrus R. Vance, Edmund S. Muskie, Alexander M. Haig Jr. and George P. Shultz during their tenures as secretary of state.
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Russell Banks, novelist.
Joyce Meskis, former owner of The Tattered Cover.
In addition to creating a bookstore famed for its vast selection and bibliophile-friendly atmosphere, Ms. Meskis often took a stand in matters related to censorship and the First Amendment. Sometimes those positions were not easy ones to embrace.
In 1991, for instance, when she was president of the American Booksellers Association, she testified against the proposed Pornography Victims Compensation Act, a bill introduced by Senator Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican, that would have allowed victims of sex crimes to sue distributors of pornography, including bookstores, if they could demonstrate that pornography influenced their attacker. Opponents of that bill (which died in committee) were sometimes labeled pro-pornography, but Ms. Meskis knew the real issue was that the law would make bookstores wary of selling anything controversial.
Similarly, the case she took to the Colorado Supreme Court some two decades ago pitted her against law enforcement officials, who were trying to build a case against a customer suspected of making methamphetamine. In 2000 the police found two books on drugmaking in a trailer home used as a meth lab; they also found an envelope with Ms. Meskis’s bookstore listed as the return address. Hoping to link the drugmaking to the recipient whose name was on the envelope, they sought Ms. Meskis’s sales records — and, though her stand read as pro-drug to some, she again saw the bigger picture.
“This is about access to private records of the book-buying public,” she told The New York Times in 2000. “If buyers thought that their records would be turned over to the government, it would have a chilling affect on what they buy and what they read.”
In 2002 the State Supreme Court ruled that both the First Amendment and the Colorado Constitution “protect an individual’s fundamental right to purchase books anonymously, free from governmental interference.”
Adam Rich. Other credits include “CHiPs”, “Silver Spoons”, and “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star”.
Owen Roizman, cinematographer. “The French Connection”, “The Exorcist”, and “Network”? Wow.
Art McNally, NFL official credited as being “the father of instant replay”.
Earl Boen. Other credits (he has 291 as an actor: man worked) include video game spun offs from a minor 1960s SF TV series, “Battle Beyond the Stars”, the good “Hawaii 5-0”, and “Richie Brockelman, Private Eye”.
Someone needs to write Bernie & Dash, a novel about their crazy Alaskan hi-jinks that’s also a hard-boiled detective mystery…
I like this idea, and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
I even have an idea for their first investigation: the death of Kermit Roosevelt.
I remember Bernard Kalb, one of the old breed of journalists that was to me, a true representative of what a journalist was meant to be. His style always shown through his stories, but the story was always the main focus, and his trips with dignitaries were always something to pay attention to. They often turned into something important, with him finding the meat of the story, or the visit.
Even if it were just a goodwill visit, he would come up with some angle that nobody else would have, be it how the visit was laying the groundwork for future relations down the road some 10-20 years. And then explaining just how that worked, and why it was an important thing, or why Kissinger or Shultz needed to go to a particular place now, instead of next year.
I was pretty young when Nixon went to China, but I do remember that it was a contentious trip, with many not liking the fact that he went, but at the time it turned out to be the right move, with both nations profiting from the visit for decades. Now we don’t know what will become of our relations with China, but if we act correctly with the CCP, we have the possibility of remaining on good terms with them, and still profiting with our relationship and staying, if not on good terms, then respectfully at peace.